Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/21



NOTHING surprises the student of Chinese history and the Chinese people more than the incomplete and uncertain character of available infor- mation. The subject is profoundly interesting. No other nation with which the world is ac- quainted has been so consistently true to itself ; no other nation has preserved its type so unaltered ; no other nation has developed a civilisation so completely independent of extraneous influences ; no other nation has elaborated its own ideals in such absolute segregation from alien thought ; no other nation has preserved the long stream of its literature so entirely free from foreign affluents ; no other nation has ever reached a moral and national elevation comparatively so high above the heads of contemporary States. About a land thus